PrimeGenesis Blog
Generating Ideas with the Atom Accelerator in Your Head
My brain is getting bombarded with ideas from all sorts of different directions. I thrive on this and am constantly looking for ways to feed more stuff into the mix. This week was particularly fruitful as I got new stuff from: Image by Danacea via Flickr...
Powerful First Impressions: Michael Brune’s Day One at The Sierra Club
Everything is magnified on Day One, whether it’s your first day in a new company, or the day of a big announcement. Everyone is looking for hints about what you think and what you’re going to do. This is why it’s so important to seed your message by paying particular attention to all the signs, symbols, and stories you deploy, and the order in which you deploy them. Make sure people are seeing and hearing things that will lead them to believe and feel what you want them to believe and feel about you and about themselves in relation to the future of the organization.
Onboarding Success vs. Failures: CEO Case Studies at Mastercard and Time Inc.
What Griffin did wrong at Time and Banga did right at Mastercard Sometimes the business context and organizational culture at a company demand that you accelerate your transition into a new role. And sometimes you can take it a more slowly. But in every...
Walmart CEO Mike Duke Shifts Approach
One of the main advantages to adopting the mindset that we are all new leaders all the time is that you and your team will be ready at all times to adjust to changing circumstances and surprises. Remember, the ability to respond flexibly and fluidly is a hallmark of a high performing team.
Not all surprises are equal. Your first job is to sort them out to guide your own and your team’s response. If it is a temporary, minor blip, keep your team focused on its existing priorities. If it is minor, but enduring, factor it into your ongoing evolution.
Major surprises are a different game. If they’re temporary, you’ll want to move into crisis or incident management. If they’re enduring, you’ll need to react and make some fundamental changes to deal with the new reality.
Finding Your Voice is an Essential Leadership Skill
"The King's Speech" won best picture last night. Marvelous. Seeing that movie got me thinking about how important it is for leaders to find their voice. Turns out others have thought about this too. "The King's Speech"...
Inspiring and Enabling Disagreement is a Core Leadership Skill
How do you react when someone disagrees with one of your ideas? Does your fight or flight instinct click in? That is, of course, the natural response honed by millions of years of evolution. Yet, for today's higher order leaders, it's far...
Why Preparing in Advance is Priceless: How Ajay Banga Prepared for his New Leadership Role
Looking back on the transition, Ajay said Bob did a “masterful” job at allowing him to settle in and pick up pieces step-by-step without all the external and internal pressures getting dumped on him at the same time.
Throughout, Ajay leveraged his leadership skills in connecting with people. After 13 years at Citibank, he had an insider’s view of the way things worked there. Ajay explained that it “gets in your blood through a sort of reverse osmosis… But at MasterCard, I’m the outsider. So the only way I could get up to speed on the culture, what’s working, what’s not working, our competitive strengths and the like was to invest in listening”.
Thus, he spent a lot of time doing just that. Ajay describes walking into offices at the headquarters, sitting down (or “flopping in a chair”[i]) and saying “I’m Ajay. Tell me about yourself.” or “What can I do to help?” or “What should I not do”. Good start, but not good enough. Then Ajay went out to meet “people outside the big offices,” traveling around the world to visit MasterCard’s country offices to learn about their obstacles and strengths.
Leverage Your Agenda as a Symbol of What’s Important when Onboarding
Edgar was joining a company as CEO. He told us the most important thing he had to do was to change the mindset of the organization to become more customer focused. “What are you doing Day One?” “I’ve got this planned. I’m showing up, introducing myself to the team...
A Shocking Approach by New UK Prime Minister David Cameron
Whether or not you agree with the direction the United Kingdom’s new Prime Minister, David Cameron, is taking the country, there can be no doubt about his sense of urgency and the consistency of his direction. The manner in which he has shocked the UK’s political...
Managing Time while Onboarding is a Critical Leadership Skill
Mark was new in his job. He went to his boss for help with the 12 projects he was working on. "Can you help me sort these into A, B, and C priorities?" "Easy. They're all A's" Nancy had a new boss. He came to her one...